Plainfield C. uses a rally for the 'W'

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ROMEOVILLE -- The game was not pretty and it certainly was not easy.

But it was a 66-58 foul-plagued Southwest Prairie Conference win for Plainfield Central High School over Romeoville.

"We let one get away in the last minute to these guys last Saturday night at our place so it was important that we came back strong tonight," Plainfield Central coach Josh Virostko said after his team battled back from an 8-point in the third quarter.

"We've struggled of late and it continued in the first half tonight," continued Virostko. "So at halftime I drew a line in the sand and challenged some of our kids."

The game was tight throughout with neither team having more than an 8-point advantage until Plainfield opened up an 11-point margin in the final 30 seconds of the game.

Plainfield (15-8, 7-5) led 17-13 after the first quarter and pushed the lead to 22-14 early in the second. But Romeoville (10-14, 6-7) made its first run and finally caught the Wildcats at 26 apiece and went ahead 27-26 at halftime.

The Spartans continued the run at the start of the third quarter by registering the first 5 points and then extending their lead to 36-28 with 3:51 left in the period. Overall, it was a 22-6 run and Romeoville appeared to be in control.

But it was at this point when Virostko's halftime message started to sink in to his players' minds. The Wildcats turned the tables on the Spartans and ran off an 11-1 run of their own to grab a 39-37 lead.

The fourth quarter was filled with fouls, free throw makes and misses and numerous timeouts. The last tie of the game was at 44-44.

"I can't complain," Romeoville coach Jeff Bambule said. "Our kids played hard. We were missing Demarius Miller (sick) but the other kids came to play and did a lot of good things."

Allen led Plainfield with 16 points and the Wildcats got 15 from senior guard Deadre Owens and 11 from Williams. Allen also led Plainfield with 11 rebounds.

Senior guard Earl Bell topped Romeoville with 16 points. Senior forward Nate Johnson added 13 and Hodges chipped in 11 and added a game-high 12 rebounds.